


love is the end

by legdabs (scvlly)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: <33333, (weed), Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Smoking, guess who can't tag still, i see now i should've clarified, i thought angst would cover that but i'm guessing not...., so genuinely i'm sorry if you read this expecting something happy, there's some light smut i guess......... idk dudes, this doesn't have a happy ending, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 02:57:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14071428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scvlly/pseuds/legdabs
Summary: every night, dan sneaks out of his family home to meet him, and phil drives them to the beach, where they sit and talk and make out like the teenagers that they are.the problem is, it’s 1966. what they’re doing, and how they feel, will be against the law for another year.





	love is the end

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is gonna be a long one bUT bear with! this is VITAL context to the whole story so please have a quick read!
> 
>  **Historical note:**  
>  Homosexuality (between men) in Britain wasn’t legalised until 1967, and even then the age of consent between two men was 21. This wasn’t equalised until 2001.
> 
> Less important, but still - as a history student I feel I have to mention: I’ve taken some liberties with the nature of car ownership in the '60s, and with education i.e. working-class Dan being about to go into a trade but still attending college until 18. Fight me.
> 
> Also, minor point: I’ve had Phil go to Manchester uni because York was only founded in 1963, whereas Manchester was founded in the 19th century and it just felt better for him to be there than at York idk
> 
> The Dan and Phil of this story are 18 and 20. Dan's just finished college, and after the summer will start working for his dad's construction business; Phil's come as far from uni as he can get to work a summer job in a seaside cafe, which is where they meet.

 

 

Dan’s seat is pushed back as far at it will go and his feet are up on the dashboard, crossed at the ankles. Phil can’t quite force his eyes away from the fullness of his lips as he takes drag after drag from the cigarette between his fingers, the smoke flowing out from the ‘o’ of his mouth with an intoxicating slowness; a cloud too delicate and graceful to be so deadly.

Phil doesn’t mind the way that the smell clings to the inside of his car. In fact, he thinks he might even _like_ the burn of the second-hand smoke and the way it tightens his throat, the way it feels as though it’s crawling inside him in search of a new home.

The scene he’s in feels so good, so right, just as it has every night all summer: the boy in the seat beside him, his features soft and curved with youth, lit only by the glow of his cigarette; the rain drumming gently, rhythmically against the car around them; the sea ahead, distantly rumbling, stretching out into the darkness.

Dan winds his window down a little to tap away some ash, looking back to Phil as he does so.

“We’ve come here every night this summer. How come we’ve never gotten out of the car?”

“I guess we never needed to.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve always had plenty to do.” Phil smirks, and Dan, for once, has the good manners to blush.

“Do you want to?”

Phil blinks at him. “Do I want to what?”

“Get out of the damn car.”

“Have you seen the rain?”

“Oh, Phil,” Dan smirks, “I never thought you’d be afraid of getting a little wet.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Dan throws his cigarette butt into the sand as Phil locks the car, the younger boy laughing as the elder struggles with the key getting itself stuck in the lock.

“Leave it,” he says when Phil looks like he might just kick the car out of frustration. “Nobody ever comes here. It won’t get stolen.”

“You never know, they might!” Phil sounds stressed, and Dan laughs.

“They won’t, and you know it. You wouldn't have brought us here if they would.”

It’s true. Phil does know it. He would never have risked them getting caught, and this abandoned car park atop a crumbling cliff is almost definitely the least-visited place in the world. The danger of the ground _maybe_ falling away beneath them is nothing compared to the destructive power of what certainly _would_ happen if they were found together with their hands beneath each other’s shirts, panting into each other’s mouths.

After all, boys aren’t supposed to kiss boys.

He gives up trying to lock the car after a few more tries, deciding that it’s not worth wasting any more of the time he could be spending with Dan, so he leaves the keys still hanging from the lock and joins Dan on the other side of the car. Dan’s curls are already visibly wet from the rain, but they still hold their shape, and as soon as he’s beside him, Dan’s slipping his hands into the pockets of Phil’s jacket and pulling him close enough to brush their noses together.

“Shall we?” Dan asks, inclining his head vaguely in the direction of the beach, and when Phil nods he pulls back and leads him down a steep path towards the sand.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they reach the water, the rain has just about stopped.

Phil has sand in his shoes - he can feel it creeping into his socks, in between his toes - but it's okay, because Dan's hand is in his, and the sea smells fresh and salty and it blends into the night somewhere so far away that he can't see where it ends.

He wishes he didn't have the weight of the words he still wants to say holding him down, because the water is lapping at their toes, urging them closer, and Phil doesn't think he can stay afloat even without the extra weight.

"You look pretty tonight," Dan says, the voice beside him drawing Phil's attention back to the moment, to the smell of the sea and the hand still in his, and the way that the moonlight is catching Dan's face and casting his profile just so.

"Not that you don't every night," Dan adds quickly, tugging Phil a little closer. "It's just nice to see you under some natural light and out of the car."

"You look... ethereal," Phil murmurs, blushing, because he can't take a compliment but he can sure as hell give them out.

Dan smiles over at him as if he doesn’t know how beautiful he truly is; a notion which Phil finds ridiculous **.**

"What do you want to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're the one who so desperately wanted to get out of the car. What can we do on the beach that we couldn't back there?"

Dan muses for a moment, leaning in to rest his head against Phil's chest as he watches the waves crest and roll to shore.

"We couldn't swim in the car,"

"We're not going swimming, Dan."

"Why not? It's summer, we're young..."

Phil snorts. "Put your finger in it."

"I'm sorry?"

"The sea. Put your finger in the sea."

Dan does as he's told, unwrapping himself from Phil and rolling up a sleeve, careful to avoid the water encroaching on his feet with every breaking wave.

"Fuck!" He curses loudly and shoots backwards as soon as his hand makes contact with the water. "Shit, Phil, you're right. It's cold."

"You honestly thought it would be warm?"

"Yeah! I mean, why wouldn't it be?"

"Have you ever actually swum in the sea?"

"Actually... I guess I haven't."

"Well. Lesson learned,” Phil says.

"Mmm, thank you teacher. How ever can I repay you for this most valuable lesson?" Dan's voice turns from incredulous to sultry in a split second, and he stalks his way back to Phil's side.

The moon has passed behind a cloud; Dan's dark clothing makes him almost wraith-like in the faint light, and it's a little unerring when he reaches out for the lapels of Phil's jacket, pulling him closer. All that Phil can see clearly are his darkened eyes.

It's too much effort to raise an eyebrow or question whatever weird fantasy Dan's trying to work with, so Phil just says: "Kiss me."

So Dan does.

His lips are as soft as ever - Phil has to stop himself from sinking his teeth into the fullness of Dan's bottom lip - and when Phil draws his tongue across them, they taste just a little bit like the salt in the air. Dan's hands on his jacket slip beneath it, towards the hem of his jumper and then onto his bare skin, and the cold sea water still on Dan's fingers as they run across his hip and to the base of his ribs makes Phil squirm.

Their mouths keep time with the push and pull of the waves beside them. Phil can't quite get enough of the way it feels to be gripping at Dan's back in so much open space, with the soothing sound of the water and the stirring of the warm night-time breeze surrounding them, rather than reaching for each other in the stale confines of his car.

It's good - almost too good - but it's not quite the same. The sand wouldn’t make for quite as comfortable a bed as the driver's seat, even as cramped as it is. There's also no risk in the car of the sea coming in a little too far and running over their feet, which is what it does without a hint of warning in the next moment.

Dan jumps away from Phil with a squeal, running backwards from the water with exaggerated steps. Phil watches him go as he jumps sideways away, cracking up at the deeply offended expression on his face.

"My feet are soaked!" Dan frowns, and Phil, for all his efforts, can't quite stop laughing. "Phil!"

"I'm sorry, you jus-" Phil can't find the breath to speak, still too focused on Dan's pout to think too much about the dampness in his own shoes. "You looked ridiculous!"

"Gee, thanks. So supportive," Dan's smirking despite himself, clearly deciding he's far enough from the water that he can untie his shoes and check out the damage. "Can I have a hand over here?"

"Sure," Phil shakes his head, still smiling, and traipses up the beach towards the other boy.

When he gets there, Dan reaches out with a grabby hand for Phil’s shoulder, then lifts up one leg to tug at his shoe. Water quite literally pours out, and suddenly Phil feels a little bit bad for laughing so much.

"Whoops," Dan shrugs, putting it back on his foot and wincing a little at the dampness still inside. He repeats the process with the other one, Phil holding his elbow to help him balance, before both shoes are back on his feet.

Dan starts to tie one set of laces, so Phil crouches beside the other, eyes lingering on Dan’s crotch where it sits so conveniently in his line of sight. He half hopes to feel Dan’s hands slipping into his hair, encouraging him closer, but given that they’re entirely exposed on a public beach, he supposes he’ll settle for feeling Dan's heated gaze on him as his fingers struggle a little with the wet fabric.

"You tie laces really weirdly," Dan tells him, his voice a little husky, and Phil looks up with an eyebrow raised.

"Then do it yourself, Howell."

"It's not a dig,” Dan correct softly. “It's an endearing quality, I like it."

Phil smiles. "You're strange."

"So are you."

"I guess that's why we're such a good fit, huh?" Dan grins cheekily down at him, before straightening up. He cracks his back one way, then the other, and reaches out a hand to help Phil to his feet.

He tries not to think too much about how well their fingers knot together, or the way that Dan frowns, just a little, when Phil doesn't find the words to agree.

 

 

* * *

 

They’re standing together looking at the stars, following the lines that people have drawn for thousands of years to connect the distant glowing bodies and make them into bigger patterns, shapes, and figures that seem a little more familiar, a little more earthly, when Dan bumps his shoulder gently, and asks him what’s wrong.

Phil doesn’t quite know how to respond. He supposes it’s because they’re so in-tune with each other at this point that even something as minor as an off vibe is enough to prompt questions, but that realisation just makes it harder for him to tell Dan the truth.

Dan’s question gives him an excuse, at least. He doesn’t have to pluck the bad news from thin air like it’s something he’s concluded without due process at the end of the night, because Dan already knows that something isn’t right.

So he tells him, because he has to, in an almost whisper, with his gravelly voice cracking over the syllables: “This is my last night.”

From the way Dan’s looking at him, like Phil has betrayed him somehow by not giving Dan more warning, he almost wishes he’d told him sooner.

He wishes he’d never had to tell him at all.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Dan reasons, the plea evident in his tone, but Phil can’t lie to him - not even to stop him from hurting.

“I wish I was.”

Dan reaches for a fist-sized stone at his feet, and Phil thinks Dan might just hit him over the head with it, but instead, he pulls back his arm and hurls it against the rocks beside them. It smashes on impact, the fragments and shards glinting in the moonlight before falling with dull thuds into the sand.

Phil’s shocked, but he doesn’t say a word. He’s never seen Dan angry, never guessed that his rage would manifest in such a destructive outburst, and it scares him, just a little. But Dan makes no move to follow up on that singular action, doesn’t jump on Phil to wrestle him to the sand or push his head beneath the waves still breaking before them. Dan doesn’t turn to him to scream or spit poisonous words, to hurt Phil in the way that Phil hurt him, however unintentionally.

Phil almost wishes that he would. Maybe it would be easier if he was scared of Dan, if fear helped him to walk away.

“You know that means that this has to end, right?” Dan says after long minutes of silence, his anger turned to hollow defeat. He speaks so quietly that Phil half wonders whether he thinks that if neither of them hear his words then they can be swept away tidily by the water at their feet; the truth of them unacknowledged, redundant.

“What if I don’t want it to?” Phil says, and it’s more of a statement than a question because he knows Dan feels the same; because he’d take on any one of the forces that conspire to keep them apart if only it would give them more time.

Dan laughs bitterly. “What if neither of us do?”

“I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” Phil scuffs his shoe in the sand, watching the tiny particles drop into the water and disappear. “Not unless you can change the law, and the attitudes of, like, fifty million people.”

Dan sighs, taking Phil’s hand. “You’re special, Phil, but not even you can do that.”

“I’d do it if it was enough to stay with you,” Phil tells him, and it chips away at his heart just a little more when Dan smiles across at him with a broken fondness and a single tear on his cheek.

After a deep, shuddering breath, Dan squeezes Phil’s hand in his. “Maybe we’ll meet in another life, yeah? One where this would all work out, where we could actually be together.”

“So long as we’d still remember this summer.”

“I don’t think I could forget it. No version of me could.”

“You really think so?” Phil asks quietly.

Dan reaches over to cup his cheek, pressing a kiss to his forehead even gentler than the touch of the moonlight on his skin.

“I really do,” he tells him, and the look in Dan’s eyes says that Phil has no choice but to believe him.

It takes a long moment for Dan to take his hand from the curve of Phil’s jaw, but when he does, he makes his way towards the rocks upon which the stone he threw shattered. He crouches to search through the sand, his dark clothes hiding him from Phil amongst the shapes of the rocks until eventually, he straightens up and returns to Phil’s side.  

“Pick one,” Dan tells him, extending his open hand where two large pieces of the same dark grey stone as the one that he’d thrown sit together.

Phil takes the slightly smaller, slightly more jagged one. It’s a thin flint, cold against his palm. The edges are sharp, but the centre of the piece feels impossibly smooth for something smashed open with so little care.

Dan closes his fingers around the piece he’s been left with, slipping it into his pocket. Phil follows his lead.

“We could stay here, y’know? Fill our pockets with stones, walk out into the sea. Then you’d never have to leave.”

“We’re not Virginia Woolf, Dan.”

“She had a point though, don’t you think? ‘I don't think two people could have been happier than we’ve been’.”

Phil looks across to see Dan already watching him, his expression earnest. He wants to reach over, to pull the younger boy into his arms, to tell him that he doesn’t have to leave, but lying has never let him escape the truth.

He settles for a nod and a watery-eyed smile to tell Dan that he agrees, settles for reaching over to take his hand so that they can take their next steps, at least, together.

It doesn’t matter that their pockets aren’t full of stones. The walk back to the cliff-top still feels like drowning.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Time for one last smoke?”

“Do you really have to say it like that?” Phil frowns, swallowing hard.

Dan smiles softly at him. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Go ahead,”

Dan licks his lips before he takes out a baggie and some papers. Dan doesn’t often smoke weed on their nights together, but when he does, Phil loves to watch as his long, nimble fingers spread the leaves and carefully roll the paper, as his tongue darts out to wet a strip along the edge. Dan takes the joint between his teeth, and with his other hand searches his pocket for his lighter; when he finally finds it and lifts it towards the joint, Phil reaches out for it, his hands closing softly around the Zippo.

“Let me?”

Dan nods at him, eyes hooded, watching Phil’s fingers as they flick open the lid and strike down on the wheel.

Dan’s gaze doesn’t leave Phil’s as he leans into the flame, inhaling over it to start the joint. His features are warmed by the dancing fire, and his eyes are lit with a dark kind of hunger that makes Phil’s hand shake, just a little.

Dan leans back to breathe out his first exhale, and Phil closes the lighter. He settles back again, content to stay in this moment for as long as it will last; watching Dan work the joint and turn the air between them into a fine haze.

“Can I try?” Phil asks, for the first time since they’ve met, and Dan raises an eyebrow in surprise.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. There’s a first time for everything, right?” _And a last_ , he thinks, but he doesn’t want to dwell too much on that right now. “You know I’ve never smoked before, though.”

Dan thinks for a moment, before offering, “There’s something I think we should try.”

“Okay,” Phil responds simply. He doesn’t question Dan. He doesn’t need to.

Dan leans forward, and Phil copies. Brown eyes meet blue in the darkness, only drawn away from each other by the movement of the joint as it’s lifted towards Dan’s lips.

“I’m going to inhale, and I want you to breathe in what I breathe out.”

“Does that work?”

“It does if you do it right,” Dan smirks. He places his free hand on Phil’s knee, stroking with his thumb. “You’ll do fine.”

Dan lifts the filter to his lips once more, and Phil watches his teeth and then lips close around the end; sees the way that the tip glows a little brighter with Dan’s inhale. Dan then takes the joint away, leaning in further, and Phil thinks he’s about to kiss him until Dan reaches up to open his mouth with the hand that was resting on his knee, and he starts to get the idea.

Their mouths align. Dan breathes out the smoke from his mouth, and Phil breathes it in. He’s surprised to find that he’s not coughing, and it’s not all that unpleasant - the second-hand smoke from the car, he supposes, has been enough to get him used to the drying sensation he feels in his throat, but it’s far more intense than he’s used to. He breathes it out again, and Dan smiles before pressing their lips together properly, and the potent taste he’s so used to finding on Dan’s tongue feels as though it’s just as present on his own, too.

“How did that feel?” Dan murmurs against his mouth, eyes only half-open.

“I feel like it didn’t really do anything,” Phil giggles, and Dan smirks.

“You didn’t inhale properly, that’s why. If you want to, I can show you-“

“No. Thanks, but… that was enough, Dan,” Phil pulls back, enough that he can look into the eyes of the man beside him. “It was really hot.”

Dan smiles. “I’m glad you agree.”

He takes another toke, before pressing their lips together again.

It’s all too easy to get lost in kissing Dan. Phil doesn't ever want to forget how it feels to be caught between the push and pull of his mouth, between his teeth that nip and encourage, beneath his tongue that works small miracles against his own. When Dan rolls down the window, throws the rest of his blunt out onto the ground, and moves his kisses along Phil’s jaw to his earlobe and down his neck, he’s all too happy to fall into that spiral of warmth and goodness that tugs at his heart and his stomach.

Phil reaches over to Dan, bunching his shirt in his hands and encouraging him to move across the central console and into his lap. The space is too cramped for their legs to be this long, but they’re practised by now at making it work, at pushing back the seat just enough so that Phil can hold Dan’s waist and find the buttons of his jeans, so that Dan can grind himself down against the body beneath his and tease the low moans that he so loves from Phil’s long throat.

Dan’s never been quite this possessive, Phil thinks absently as the boy above him licks and bites, and when he sucks his way across Phil’s collarbones, he tries in vain to push away the creeping thoughts that this is the last time that he’ll ever feel what Dan’s mouth can do; that the bruises Dan makes on the pale expanse of his neck will never be permanent enough, and will soon fade along with the intensity of the memories of this night, of this summer, of this boy.

He encourages Dan’s mouth to move back up to his, and if Phil tastes the salt of tears on the lips that move against his - well. At least he knows that they belong to both of them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Dan’s been quiet in his lap for so long, head nestled in the crook of his neck, that Phil thinks he must have fallen asleep.

His hands are resting against the warm skin of Dan’s back, absently drawing tiny swirls and patterns with the tip of his finger. Every breath he takes lifts Dan’s body along with his own chest. The rhythmic rise and fall, combined with Dan’s warm weight, encourages his eyes to close a little more with each breath until Dan breaks the almost-silence with half-coherent words mumbled against the skin of Phil’s neck.

"Can we run away together? You have a car, we can both get jobs and live in a little house in the middle of nowhere, and nobody would ever have to know."

"Don’t you think the neighbours would suspect something?" Phil asks gently, and Dan sits up with a sigh of effort.

Phil tries to keep his eyes on Dan’s face instead of his bare chest, now littered with hickeys, but he doesn’t quite succeed.

"I don’t care what the neighbours would think.” Dan sounds petulant, settling on Phil’s thighs. “I don’t care what anyone thinks. Why should we stop this because people are ignorant and want to lock us up for love?"

"You know I agree with you."

"Yeah."

"So why are you trying to convince me?"

"I… I don’t know, Phil.”

"We should get you home."

"Please don’t call it home."

"Why not?"

"It can’t be home if you’re not there."

"Dan…" he squeezes his eyes shut, feeling the tears pricking and threatening, but willing them not to fall. "Do you have to make this even harder than it already is?"

"I’ll keep going if it’s enough to stop you leaving."

"You know I have to go back to uni. I can’t change this, and neither can you. But I don’t want our last night to be spent fighting like this, do you?”

Dan shakes his head.

"Good. Shall we go? We can drive around for a while before I take you back, while there’s nobody else on the roads."

"Can we stay here?"

"Sure, if you want?" Phil questions, more than a little confused. Why wouldn't he want to spend time on winding country roads? There’s something so special about being the only car for miles, after all; something special about the disconnect of having your way lit only by too-dim headlights and a waning moon.

"I can’t kiss you like this while you’re driving," Dan says, and Phil bites his lip as he smiles, as Dan leans in.

He can’t argue with that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Phil thinks that it would probably hurt less if he were to turn the car around here, to drive back along the winding coast road to their cliff-top car park and keep driving, to fall through the air and into the sea and have their bodies found together tomorrow in a crush of metal and bone, because it’s better to be found dead than alive with another man.

Maybe it _would_ be better to die together than to live apart.

He tells himself it's irrational and stupid, but what's more convincing is the feeling of Dan's hand covering his on the gear stick and the warmth bleeding through to his weary bones. Phil knows he's too young to feel so haunted and be so tired of hiding from the world, but maybe it's a fate he's willing to suffer to prolong this feeling in his chest, the tightness and something deeper, somehow more base and instinctual and yet so rich and good.

"What are you thinking?" Dan asks, running his thumb over Phil's knuckles. When Phil shifts his glance away from the road and across towards the boy beside him, he's almost certain that Dan already knows the answer to his own question.

"I'm thinking that I wish this road was longer," Phil says, because that just about covers it, he supposes; except it doesn't. So he continues: "I'm thinking that I wouldn't change a thing.”

Dan looks perplexed - Phil can see him out of the corner of his eye, eyebrows furrowed, frowning slightly.

"What I mean is, I don't regret it. It hurts but... I wouldn't go back and have it not happen, or have it happen differently. I wish it could've happened in sixty years time. Maybe then we wouldn't have to hide it."

"Maybe it will happen then," Dan says quietly, tracing the vein linking Phil's thumb and ring finger absently. "When we meet again, in sixty years, in that other lifetime. Maybe it will happen."

"I hope you're right," Phil swallows hard.

It's as though Dan can't bear to hear the way Phil's voice cracks, because there's no longer a hand resting on top of his, but instead one stroking long, elegant lines across his jaw.

"Of course I am," Dan murmurs. "I always am, aren't I?"

Dan leans across and kisses him. Phil can't seem to bring himself to care whether or not he drives them off the road.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The rain hasn’t let up by the time Phil turns into the road where Dan lives. If anything, it’s coming down harder, in sheets that have the window wipers struggling to keep up, forcing Phil to drive even more slowly.

It’s not a hardship to do so; not when it means extending these last few moments for just a little longer than they’ve already managed to eek them out.

“You can say that it was too rainy to see my house, if you want,” Dan says. “I’ll call my mum later and tell her you couldn’t see where to drop me off, and you didn’t want me to get too wet, so you just kept driving and somehow we ended up in Manchester and it’s just easier for me to live in your flat until you graduate than to catch a train back here.”

“If that excuse would play out well, we’d already be halfway there by now.”

Dan sighs. “Why are you always right?”

“I guess I’m just old and wise, huh?”

“Maybe so, old man.”

Phil’s smile quickly fades when he realises they’re coming up to Dan’s house, indicating as he pulls over even though there’s nobody else on the road.

He turns the engine off. What’s left is the sound of the rain hitting against their metal shell, the sound of their breathing, the sound of the words they can’t say.

It takes a long time for the silence to be broken. Doing so is far too loaded - it sets in motion the final chain of events that will end with Dan leaving Phil’s car for the last time, and Phil driving back to a city that already felt too big for him to face alone - but it has to happen.

Time won’t wait for them now.

“I’ll see you again, Lester,” Dan says, and he sounds so certain, so confident, that it’s hard for Phil to give credence to the tears stinging at his eyes.

“Of course you will.” Phil’s voice is shaking and cracking because even though he wants to (and he so _desperately_ wants to), even though he’s wishing to any number of deities that he could, he can’t quite call Dan’s words a truth.

Dan nods once, then again, as though the motion of his head will be enough to force his hand towards the door, to unfurl his legs out onto the pavement. Apparently it is, because suddenly Dan is no longer in Phil’s rusting Cortina, but outside of it, hands shoved deeply inside his pockets as he moves in front of the bonnet and up the path to his house.

Phil feels his absence instantly and watches him go with watery eyes, committing to memory the way Dan’s long legs cover the ground, and the way his curls bounce slightly with each step.

Dan’s not halfway to his door when he turns around. Even from so far away, Phil can see the force with which he’s biting into his bottom lip, and the redness around his eyes. Phil reaches down, rolling down the window as fast as the stiff mechanism will let him because he wants - no, _needs_ \- to see Dan more clearly, frowning and struggling as the handle gets suck and he raps his knuckles against the rough plastic of the interior. When he finally loosens the lever and looks up, he sees Dan running back towards the car, and that same redness seems even more pronounced the closer that he gets.

Phil’s heart feels as though it might just break again.

Dan heads straight towards the open window, lowering himself just enough that they’re eye to eye, enough that he can see the tears staining Phil’s cheeks, and Phil can watch the rain run out of Dan’s curls and mingle with the teardrops streaming across his face.

“I…” Dan chokes, eyes forced shut, tilting his damp forehead through the window so that it’s pressed against Phil’s. The words won’t come out, but it doesn’t mean they’re not true, and as the warmth of Dan’s breath hits his lips time after time, Phil can feel the tears threatening to fall again.

“It’s okay,” he tells him, because they’re the only words he has left. “Me too.”

A broken sob lurches from Dan’s throat, and Phil doesn’t know what else he can do but grip more tightly to the front of Dan’s jumper and press their lips back together one last time. He tastes the rain on Dan’s skin and the salt of their tears. Phil’s so certain that nothing in his life will ever be quite like this, and that somehow makes it hurt even more.

Phil’s not sure whose mouth leaves whose, but all too soon there’s no soft tongue running across his lips - only Dan holding his face like he’s made of the most delicate china, and sliding his thumbs across the tracks of his tears.

“Thank you,” Dan murmurs, and it’s as close to saying ‘goodbye’ as either of them will ever come.

He moves backwards then, Phil’s face feeling cold and bereft as Dan’s hands are lifted, and he turns away. Phil watches him square his shoulders as though bracing himself for something harder than the walk up the path to his own house and he wants to reach out into the rain already sluicing through the window to grab the bottom of Dan’s shirt, to tug him back once more.

Phil wonders if that would be enough, or if Dan’s shirt is already too saturated by the rain that he’d slip hopelessly through his fingers yet again.

He doesn’t, of course. There’s no way back for them, and Phil knows it.

Knowing it doesn’t make watching Dan struggle back to his house with his head bowed against the weather for the second time that night feel any easier, though. It still feels a little bit like ripping out his own heart and letting it walk away.

But then, Phil can’t help but wonder if he’s being a little too dramatic.

It was only three months, after all. Just a summer fling. A hundred nights spent talking and kissing and fucking in a parked car, sharing secrets and dreams and gentle words in a tiny box so far removed from the rest of the world.

Phil doesn’t even know if he would’ve been brave enough to continue it, if what he felt for Dan would’ve been strong enough to deal with the homophobia and vile words and questions they’d endure forever if they tried to be together, to be free. It’s why they’d stayed hidden in his car on a cliff-edge, after all. But still; he feels like he might’ve been, if they’d been given that chance.

What he and Dan had was too good to be cast away like this. What they had, what they’d built in those few short months...

Or maybe it was just young love. Something he was obsessed with because it was something taboo, something different.

He supposes he’ll have to settle for never knowing as he watches the front door close and waits for a light to come on, or a warm, dimpled face to appear in a window and smile brokenly as Dan waves him off, but neither materialises.

Phil turns the key in the ignition, taking what feels like a final breath of the air from the space beside him that Dan had inhabited for so long. Already-stale cigarettes, his lingering cologne.

He’s not looking forward to his drive back to the north. It’s too long to sit alone with his thoughts, to regret the way they’d had to end.

He knows he could never feel that way about what they’d had. To regret the summer for its end just didn’t fit with the perfection of the time he’d spent with Dan. He’d carry it with him always, and he wouldn’t let himself be shamed by it.

It was probably nothing, but it felt like the world.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked this! it was a big ol beast to get out but i'm SO glad it's done n i hope it broke your heart :)
> 
> come say hi on tumblr @legdabs !
> 
> (if y'all actually like this i'd really like to write some more historical stuff; maybe even a fluffy/smutty prequel(s) to this? let me know lol)
> 
> surprise surprise this was VERY much inspired by keane's song, love is the end, which is GORGEOUS and i love the imagery so so much and i cry every time. please listen to it. i hope you love it too.
> 
> NOW don't feel obligated to read this lol but i feel like i owe it to the little references i've made in here to talk about some of them a bit, because i made a Lot.
> 
> \- as i said, this whole thing was basically inspired by love is the end by keane. god. it's so gorgeous. i used to play it every night before i fell asleep.
> 
> \- the part about virginia woolf - she committed suicide by filling her pockets with stones and walking into a river. the quotation that dan references is from her suicide note to her husband.
> 
> \- there's a nod to the york realist in the part about moving to a house in the country where the neighbours won't know or care. it's a little one, but it's there. i saw it a few weeks ago and..... so good.
> 
> \- the last line is ripped straight outta morrissey's autobiography. like, i didn't wanna include it, because he is currently a Giant Shit, but it pretty much shaped the whole ending so..... he's in there.
> 
> \- i also kinda couldn't not slip in the whole 'i'd find you in any lifetime' thing from the fortnite vid as a nice lil motif. it just worked so well.
> 
> \- there's an xfiles reference if u squint. i mean, everything i write is probably an xfiles reference at heart, but y'know


End file.
